1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to multilayer ceramic capacitors and specifically to a multilayer ceramic capacitor that includes a ceramic multilayer body (i.e., capacitor main body) including a plurality of dielectric ceramic layers each including a perovskite-type compound including Ba and Ti, and a plurality of inner electrodes stacked on top of one another with each of the dielectric ceramic layers interposed between a corresponding pair of the inner electrodes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hitherto, as the sizes and weights of electronic devices have been reduced, compact, high-capacitance multilayer ceramic capacitors have been widely used. A widely known example of such multilayer ceramic capacitors is a multilayer ceramic capacitor including a multilayer body constituted by a plurality of dielectric layers and by a plurality of inner electrodes each disposed at a corresponding interface between a pair of the adjoining dielectric layers, and outer electrodes disposed on the outer surface of the multilayer body so as to be electrically connected to the inner electrodes.
There has been proposed a multilayer ceramic capacitor shown in FIG. 9 as an example of the above-described multilayer ceramic capacitor, which includes a ceramic multilayer body (i.e., capacitor main body) 110 constituted by a plurality of dielectric layers (dielectric ceramic layers) 111 and by a plurality of inner electrodes 112 each disposed at a corresponding interface between a pair of the adjoining dielectric layers 111, and a pair of outer electrodes 113a and 113b disposed on the respective end surfaces of the ceramic multilayer body 110 so as to be electrically connected to the inner electrodes 112 that are alternately exposed at both end surfaces.
In Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 6-260023, a compact, high-capacitance capacitor including a dielectric layer whose relative dielectric constant does not greatly vary with temperature is described. The dielectric layer is formed of a composition including 100 molar parts of BaTiO3, 1 to 7 molar parts of CaZrO3, 0.5 to 1.5 molar parts of NiO, 0.1 to 0.3 molar parts of MnO, and 0.2 to 0.7 molar parts of Re2O3.
However, in the multilayer ceramic capacitor described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 6-260023 having the above-described structure, moisture may enter the ceramic multilayer body (i.e., capacitor main body) through gaps between the inner electrodes and the dielectric layers and, specifically, through a gap between one of the inner electrodes which is located at the outermost position in a direction in which the inner electrodes are stacked (hereinafter, referred to as “outermost inner electrode”) and the outermost dielectric layer located outside the outermost inner electrode, which deteriorates the characteristics of the multilayer ceramic capacitor.